Dog Park and the long down

Let me start of by saying I’m not a fan of dog parks – not at all! Far too many tards with dogs out of their control just roaming around looking for trouble if you ask me. This was the first time Isaac had ever been to a dog park though he’s been socialized with a lot of other dogs of all different shapes, sizes, colors, and intelligence levels.

I took Isaac to wait at the soccer fields while waiting for Noah’s practice to end and was working him in the open field he’s used to. Just a little OB and then was going to do the long down and decided he was ready for some real distractions.

The dog park only had four dogs in it (two Grate Dains were leaving as we entered).

When I took him in they all kind of ignored him because we were just walking the perimeter minding our own business. A  Great Pyrenees came up and drooled on him and there were polite sniffs and he then moved on.

I took him to the far corner and platzed him – walked to a picnic table and had a seat. Dogs walked up and sniffed him a couple times and meandered around and he stayed rock solid. Even as one woman continuously tossed a Frisbee her dog never once ran after – she would just walk over and pick it up and toss it again. So all and all he spent about 10 minutes in one spot with quite a few distractions.

No more dog parks for us, but it was nice to see that the long down I’ve been working on isn’t just dependent on a magical spot in the couple fields we normally practice in.

FYI – he’s wears a Dogtra 2300NCP, though he didn’t need any corrections it was strapped on just in case. He only postured once when he completed the long down and I was giving him a tug with his ball and the Great Pyrenees wanted the ball – Isaac is tolerant of other dogs, but is not tolerant of other dogs that want to share his ball while he’s playing with it.

Grumpy Isaac (part 2)

Kerry didn’t believe that Isaac wasn’t terribly happy to be pet while he’s eating his dinner. Again you can take the bowl, and put your hand in it, but don’t try and pet him. He got her to jump which I thought was funny – but was probably encouraging his behavior. Here’s the background

Since this just popped up figured I better nip it in the bud. Break out the hot dogs and the clicker. First day I fed him and I just barely grazed his ribs with my hand – quiet = mark and a chunk of hot dog. Did this the entire time he ate, expecting a little more each time (he knows what I was marking).

Second day I had Noah come down and do the same thing while I marked and fed. In four days only one grizzly growl and I was asking for it, but he stopped and I marked it. Think we’re well on the way to having back a tolerant food driven dog.

Interesting thing is that I’m sure it’s his over the top food drive that got him acting like a tard – yet it’s the same food drive that fixed it in a day (with 4 days of follow-up so far).

Dog-Cam Update

Since the Firewire port got smoked on my good DV cam I’ve modified the dog-cam setup. Here you go

• Logitech Webcam C250 mounted on the filing cabinet in my office
• Stickam account which is free (no adult content allowed)
• Code to embed the stickam player in a blog/web page can found here (or you could just point people to your stickam profile)
• Place to mount camera (keep in mind you’re filming a dog – keep it dog safe – video of your dog eating your webcam might be interesting to others but you and the vet might not find it as amusing).
• A Dog my guess is this will be the most significant cost you’ll incur
  

Once you’ve got your webcam software installed and running you can sign-on to your stickam account (you created earlier) and click the “Go Live” button. This will begin streaming video. You could just use the link to you’re profile on Stickam or you can be way geeky like me and embed the stickam player on your own page.

That’s all there is to it – 5 simple things you need to stream video of your smelly dog to the world! If you click here you’ll see the computer in a tool box I use when I want to be ‘mobile’ with the webcam.

Grumpy Isaac

Isaac busted out a couple nice deep growls at me while eating from his food bowl today. It was strange and was the first time it’s occurred. He eats in the dog room and I normally mill about in there grabbing a collar and lead in preparation for him going out after dinner. It’s close quarters and there is occasion that I do brush up against him while he’s chomping. He didn’t take kindly to it today~!

Mister I’m becoming sexually mature and feel the need to flex got to Platz while I picked up his bowl and grabbed a chair (no I didn’t hit him with it). He then got to decide if he’d rather be grumpy about my presence or if he’d rather be peaceful and eat from the bowl in my lap. He chose to play nice nice and eat! Will probably feed him in this manner for awhile to make sure he understands what the deal is -

Students in West Chicago

If you are a student in the West Chicago School district please avert your eyes. The content on this site is not meant to be educational! If you don’t avert your eyes please don’t share with Mrs. Duffey what you see here or I’ll potentially suffer ramifications from your surfing of the information super highway.

You might enjoy this though!!!!!

Hairy Eyeball

Isaac tossing out the hairy eyeball!